O'Reilly v. Coburn: The Evidence Fox News Does Claim You'll Go To Jail (VIDEO)

"So what you're saying is that it's true because if someone purposefully dodges their tax penalties for non-compliance they go to jail?"

From what I understand, under the final version of ObamaCare, there are no criminal penalties for either not buying insurance OR paying the tax----only civil penalties. I guess would agree with you. Why SHOULD it be any different for the health care tax than it is for all other taxes? But apparently Democrats felt it was not politically expedient AT THIS TIME to put criminal penalties in the final law. THAT can wait for later.

You say: "The manner in which Fox has presented this topic is misleading if not outright dishonest. The claim that you'll go to jail if you don't buy health insurance is false - it's only if you don't buy insurance AND pay the tax penalty that potentially leads to jail time and that's true of any tax (as you mentioned). But they didn't say that. Instead, they chose to go with a half-truth and present it in a way that would make it sound sinister."

I will grant you that SOME people on Fox glossed over the second requirement for imposing a criminal penalty (jail)--i.e. not paying the tax. Personally, I try to be as scrupulously honest in what I say as possible, but I can understand how someone---without trying to be dishonest or to mislead---could fail to mention that under the House Bill the criminal penalties attached to both the failure to buy insurance AND failing to pay the "tax" which was often also referred to as a "penalty". Even Pelosi and Obama did not pay close attention to that fine, but not insignificant point. I must admit that in commenting on the youtube video of Pelosi and Obama, I mistakenly (trying to bend over backwards to be fair to Pelosi and Obama) said that "AFTER H.R. 3962 passed, both Pelosi and Obama were specifically questioned about the fairness of jail time if a person fails to both comply with the individual mandate AND pay the tax for failing to do so." Actually, the questions to both of them was whether it was the fairness of jail time if a person did not buy health insurance. They did not directly deny that there was NEVER any threat of jail time for the mere failure to buy health insurance. Apparently Pelosi and Obama also took "jail for not buying insurance" as shorthand for "jail for not buying insurance AND for not paying the tax". The key thing about ObamaCare was the individual mandate---and there WERE consequences for not buying insurance, including POSSIBLE jail time IF a person also did not pay the "penalty" or "tax".

That SOME people were either not informed about jail as a possibility only if you did not pay the tax or were not careful about adding the tax part to their statement is understandable in light of a 2000+ page bill. Even now, I would bet that there is not one person in 100,000 who has read even part of the House Bill (including most Congressmen). It is not a small thing to ignore the fact that there WERE provisions for criminal penalties in the House Bill (and maybe earlier versions of the Senate bill too---I don't know for sure). I will concede again that SOME people on Fox News were not as careful as they might have been in how they discussed jail as an option, but it WAS true that not buying health insurance was the first doorway on the way to jail as a possibility under the House Bill. It is not "sinister" to point out that jail was a possibility under the House Bill.

It may not have been a fully accurate statement but it was more likely due either to lack of information about the fine point of all the penalties in a very lengthy and complex bill or to careless shorthand which did not mention the tax (as people often do when more recently people have said 47% of household pay no taxes when the correct statement is 47% of household pay no INCOME taxes, because it is assumed that readers or listeners know that they are talking about INCOME taxes). TPM, Media Matters, and most liberals attribute the references to jail for not buying health insurance to an evil motive to deceive and scare people. I ask which is the worse "half truth"---the incomplete statements by some people on Fox News (but were correct on the essential point that there WERE criminal penalties for not complying with the bill) or the deliberate and carefully carried out deception that Democrats in Congress, Obama, and the media perpetrated in selling ObamaCare as reducing the deficit (10 years of taxes and only 5 or 6 years of benefits, among other gimmicks), and so many other points about ObamaCare?

As I said, I prefer scrupulously honest, complete, and objective reporting and commentary. No one is going to be 100% accurate---even TPM and Media Matters. The strategy with liberals is to try to completely discredit EVERYTHING that opposing voices might say so that hopefully (in liberals' view) no one will pay ANY attention to opponents' voices. That is apparently working with liberals who are locked into their own biases, but it is not working with more independent people who have compared what Democrats and liberal media outlets say to reality and have found that Democrats and liberal media consistently tell half truths, quarter truths, and no truths, and consumers of news and commentary have gone to other sources for information that they find are more reliable, if not always perfect.

WOW! That whole "big lie" paragraph was too much. See my reply to worthy 9.

You go on:
"In this case, the orignial legislation has never provided for jail sentences or IRS enforcement"

H.R. 3962 DID provide for criminal penalties, including possible imprisonment, for not buying insurance and not paying the tax.

"It does NOT provide for the IRS to enforce the obligation to pay the fine (referred to by the GOP as a tax, but actually a fine for non-compliance with the mandate). But why let facts get in the way of a good lie."

Again, you might want to check that out. Even in the final bill the IRS has the ability to enforce the obligation to pay the tax (sometimes referred to by many people as a "penalty" or "fine" for non-compliance with the mandate to purchase insurance and not paying the tax).

As to the 16,000 IRS agents that may be hired to enforce ObamaCare, I believe that your take on that is unrealistic and factually incorrect. You don't think that the IRS will have to hire more agents to enforce ObamaCare. The 16000 figure was not made up by the Frank Luntz or a GOP think tank. As far as I can tell it came from the Republican Ways and Means Committed which studied the law. "Ways and Means Republicans released a new report detailing how the Democrats’ health care bill vastly expands the responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and strengthens the heavy hand of the IRS in dealing with taxpayers.

“If the Democrats’ health care bill becomes law, the IRS could have to hire more than 16,000 additional agents, auditors and other workers just to enforce all the new taxes and penalties,” said Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI)." http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=176997 You may think it is a "lie", but we will all see in a few years if ObamaCare stands.

You go on some more: "As for this nonsense about joing to jail for deliberately flouting the mandate, once again it derives from the "assumption" that the IRS is the enforcer -- which is not in the law. . . and has never been in the law"

Again, I think you need to go back to H.R. 3962.

You say: "Now I'm not sure I see the big problem with prosecuting people who cheat, or who leave it to others to clean up after them . . . I always thought the GOP was the party of individual responsibility. So why somebody who deliberately fails to comply with this type of law should get away with it, I am not really sure about, but I certainly understand the politics of attacking Democrats by making them seem like fascists because of an apparent desire to use the power of government (i.e., law enforcement) to enforce laws passed by a freely elected Congress and signed by a freely elected President, when assholes attempt to get away with not complying."

I am a little confused. I thought you said there were no provisions for jailing people or for enforcement, and now you are saying it is OK to jail people who try to "get away with not complying." I agree with you on individual responsibility and jailing people for flagrant violations of law, when criminal penalties fit the crime and the law provide for such penalties. It is not a lie to merely inform people that the House version of ObamaCare contained criminal penalties for non-compliance. I think it is always a good thing for people to have as much factual information as possible so they can make up their minds as to whether they support or don't support any proposed law.

You say: "Anyway, so once again, GOP Big Lie machine "assumes" that IRS will enforce, and since deliberate non-compliance of other tax laws can be prosecuted, the assumption is that deliberate non-compliance with the mandate penalty will be prosecuted in the same way."

That would be a reasonable assumption since the House bill DID have provisions for criminal penalties.

"The only problem is that this is not what the law says -- not now, not before, not ever."

Not now, yes. "Not before, not ever"---you are incorrect.

"Respectfully, the methodology of teh GOP Big Lie is to find an ambiguity, any ambiguity, in laws or statements made by Democrats, make up a lie ....blah blah blah. Never mind that the interpretation that all of this is based on is fantasy or, even worse, an out and out lie. After all, facts have a liberal bias, so its best to ignore them."

Check out H.R. 3962. That was not a fantasy (well maybe it WAS a fantasy, but the criminal penalties were not).

"One last thing -- GOP congressman Tom Barthold is a tool of the GOP Big Lie. So to cite him as an objective source for your claim of being truthful is nonsense. And, naturally, his letter that you linked to is every bit as flawed as your analysis of this."

On what basis do you say that Tom Barthold is a "tool of the GOP Big Lie"? First of all, Barthold is NOT a Congressman. According to the announcement of Barthold's appointment as Chief of Staff of the the Joint Committee on Taxation, "Mr. Barthold started at the JCT in 1987 and currently serves as the Deputy Chief of Staff. His work on the committee includes capital gains taxation, savings incentives, environmental and energy taxes, estate and gift taxation, the taxation of multinational enterprises, the low-income housing tax credit, and tax-exempt bonds. He also studies pension issues and charitable organizations for the committee. Mr. Barthold holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard along with an M.S. and B.A. from Northwestern Universities." http://waysandmeans.house.gov/press/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=5542
If Barthold is a "tool of the GOP" then he sure pulled one over on Charles Rangel and Max Baucus, who both praised Barthold's work for the JCT and expressed their confidence in him.

The Big Lie and uninformed liberals. A tried and true strategy for DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALS everywhere. I agree that the only cure for lies is to shine a bright light on them, and speak truth to evil and to the uninformed. A bright light is always the best disinfectant. AMEN

O'Reilly says unequivocally: "we researched this. no one on fox news ever said this"

People every where find out this isn't true. Then apologists start parsing out what he must have meant.

But O'Reilly didn't have these qualifications when he spoke. If O'Reilly had said "well of course Fox News said this pre-passage, but no one said this post passage" then it would be another story. Still untrue, of course, given the Weiner/O'Reilly argument post passage where O'Reilly himself was suggesting the IRS would be putting people in jail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwpzkV5vuPo

"If you don't pay, then who comes after you?...If you don't pay the IRS comes after you...The IRS gets you if you don't pay taxes. Look at Wesley Snipes."

Clearly O'Reilly is suggesting people go to jail, if not coming right and saying it.

So to sum-up, O'Reilly said one thing so unequivocally on his show. That unequivocal statement was shown to be false and now his apologists are trying to qualify his statements with what he supposedly meant, and those qualifications are also incorrect.